Ondo Govt Arraigns Suspected Killers Of Funke Olakunrin

The Ondo State government has arrested four men suspected to have killed Mrs Funke Olakunrin, the daughter of the National Leader of Afenifere, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.

They are Lawal Mazaje from the Felele area of Kogi State, Adamu Adamu from Jada area of Adamawa State, Mohammed Usman from Illela area of Sokoto State, and Auwal Abubakar from Shinkafi area of Zamfara State.

The suspects were arraigned on Friday by the government at a Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

They were brought to the court by security operatives one week after the police announced their arrest in a statement.

On Thursday last week, the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, said one of the suspects – Auwal Abubakar – was arrested on March 4 along the Sagamu-Ore Expressway in Ondo, in a follow-up action on a case of a high-profile armed robbery and kidnap for ransom that occurred in Ogun State.

The arrest of Auwal – said to be an accessory after the fact of the crime – led to the arrest of two other members of the gang – Mohammed Usman and Lawal Mazaje – in Benin, the Edo State capital, as well as Adamu Adamu in Akure.

According to Mba, the police established sufficient physical and forensic evidence linking the suspects to the killing of Mrs Funke Olakunrin.

He explained that the investigators later conducted an Identification Parade at the Federal SARS Headquarters in Lagos on April 8, which led to the positive and physical identification of three of the suspects by a survivor of the earlier crime.

The force spokesman revealed that the survivor gave a clear description of the roles each of the identified suspects played in the killing.

“At this point, the suspects capitulated and voluntarily offered a no-holds-barred confession on how Mrs Funke Olakunrin was killed,” the police statement issued on Thursday last week said.